Ibn Battuta — "The women of the Maldives go about naked from the waist up, and they are the mos…"
The women of the Maldives go about naked from the waist up, and they are the most beautiful women I have ever seen.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I saw a man in this city who had a beard so long that it reached his waist. He was a very respected scholar, but I could not help but chuckle."
"I was once offered a marriage proposal in this land, but I declined, for the women were too stout, and their customs too different from my own."
"The people of this land are a bad people, and they are not trustworthy."
"The women here are beautiful, and they do not veil themselves. This is a strange thing in a Muslim country."
"The men of this land wear skirts instead of trousers. It is a strange fashion, but they seem comfortable in it."
About Ibn Battuta (1304-1369)
Moroccan Muslim scholar and explorer whose Rihla (travels) covered ~75,000 miles across the Islamic world from Mali to China — the most-traveled person of the medieval world. Closely associated with Marco Polo (his Venetian counterpart, traveling 50 years earlier in the opposite direction). For an intellectual contrast, see medieval European Christian insularity, the sheltered monastic-feudal worldview of 14th-century Latin Christendom — Ibn Battuta's 30-year journey demonstrates that the 14th-century Dar al-Islam was a single intellectual ecosystem from West Africa to Beijing, while medieval Europe was still tribal and parochial. The cleanest 'connectedness vs insularity' contrast in pre-modern history — Battuta could find a familiar Maliki judge in any city from Mali to Sumatra.